EP1929761A2 - Communicateur vocal pour assurer une communication vocale - Google Patents

Communicateur vocal pour assurer une communication vocale

Info

Publication number
EP1929761A2
EP1929761A2 EP06790065A EP06790065A EP1929761A2 EP 1929761 A2 EP1929761 A2 EP 1929761A2 EP 06790065 A EP06790065 A EP 06790065A EP 06790065 A EP06790065 A EP 06790065A EP 1929761 A2 EP1929761 A2 EP 1929761A2
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
text
voice
telephone
audio
recipient
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Withdrawn
Application number
EP06790065A
Other languages
German (de)
English (en)
Other versions
EP1929761A4 (fr
Inventor
Labhesh Patel
Sanjeev Kumar
Shmuel Shaffer
Mukul Jain
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Cisco Technology Inc
Original Assignee
Cisco Technology Inc
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Cisco Technology Inc filed Critical Cisco Technology Inc
Publication of EP1929761A2 publication Critical patent/EP1929761A2/fr
Publication of EP1929761A4 publication Critical patent/EP1929761A4/fr
Withdrawn legal-status Critical Current

Links

Classifications

    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M1/00—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers
    • H04M1/72—Mobile telephones; Cordless telephones, i.e. devices for establishing wireless links to base stations without route selection
    • H04M1/724—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones
    • H04M1/72403—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality
    • H04M1/7243—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality with interactive means for internal management of messages
    • H04M1/72433—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality with interactive means for internal management of messages for voice messaging, e.g. dictaphones
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
    • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES OR SPEECH SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
    • G10L13/00—Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M1/00—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers
    • H04M1/72—Mobile telephones; Cordless telephones, i.e. devices for establishing wireless links to base stations without route selection
    • H04M1/724—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones
    • H04M1/72403—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality
    • H04M1/7243—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality with interactive means for internal management of messages
    • H04M1/72436—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality with interactive means for internal management of messages for text messaging, e.g. short messaging services [SMS] or e-mails
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M1/00—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers
    • H04M1/247—Telephone sets including user guidance or feature selection means facilitating their use
    • H04M1/2474—Telephone terminals specially adapted for disabled people
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M1/00—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers
    • H04M1/253—Telephone sets using digital voice transmission
    • H04M1/2535—Telephone sets using digital voice transmission adapted for voice communication over an Internet Protocol [IP] network
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M1/00—Substation equipment, e.g. for use by subscribers
    • H04M1/72—Mobile telephones; Cordless telephones, i.e. devices for establishing wireless links to base stations without route selection
    • H04M1/724—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones
    • H04M1/72475—User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones specially adapted for disabled users
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2201/00—Electronic components, circuits, software, systems or apparatus used in telephone systems
    • H04M2201/39—Electronic components, circuits, software, systems or apparatus used in telephone systems using speech synthesis
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M3/00—Automatic or semi-automatic exchanges
    • H04M3/42—Systems providing special services or facilities to subscribers
    • H04M3/50—Centralised arrangements for answering calls; Centralised arrangements for recording messages for absent or busy subscribers ; Centralised arrangements for recording messages
    • H04M3/53—Centralised arrangements for recording incoming messages, i.e. mailbox systems
    • H04M3/533—Voice mail systems

Definitions

  • This application relates to a method and voice communicator (e.g., a telephone) to provide a voice communication in a telephone communication network.
  • voice communicator e.g., a telephone
  • Telephone communication networks that allow voice/audio communication are well known in the art. Examples of such networks are traditional Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTNs) and, with the advent of the Internet, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems are increasing in popularity. While PSTN calls use a dedicated communication line or circuit for each user to complete a telephone call, VoIP calls are made via the Internet (a shared medium). Both the signaling and the media of VoIP calls use packet transmission over the Internet or over a local network (LAN). However, VoIP systems use hardware and software that enables people to use the Internet as the transmission medium for telephone calls by sending voice data in packets using IP rather than by traditional circuit transmissions of the PSTN. Further, cellular telephone networks are growing at an extremely high rate. Independent of telephone communication networks that communicate audio, email communication networks communicate text which may be read by a recipient. Although the same physical network may be utilized to communicate both an audio telephonic communication and a textual communication, the actual communications are independent and different.
  • Figure 1 shows architecture of a system, in accordance with the an example embodiment, to provide a voice communication in a telephone communication network
  • Figure 2 shows a block diagram of voice communicator, in accordance with an example embodiment, to provide a voice communication in a telephone communication network
  • Figure 3 shows a flow diagram of a method, in accordance with an example embodiment, to provide a voice communication in a telephone communication network
  • Figure 4 shows a flow diagram of the method of Figure 3 deployed in an example web environment
  • Figure 5 shows a graphical user interface, in accordance with an example embodiment, to identify text for communication as audio via a telephone communication network
  • Figure 6 shows a graphical user interface, in accordance with an example embodiment, to identify a recipient telephone number
  • Figure 7 shows a display screen providing a graphical user interface, in accordance with an example embodiment, for importing text into a soft phone
  • FIG. 8 shows a block diagram of a machine including instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologies described herein.
  • a method, device and a system to provide a voice communication in a telephone communication network may provide cross-context or cross-media functionality where text (written media) is converted and communicated to recipient via a voice communication (audible media) as a telephone communication.
  • an apparatus and a method of providing a voice communication may comprise, at a voice communicator, identifying text to be communicated and automatically processing the text to generate an audio equivalent of the text.
  • An intended recipient of the audio equivalent may be identified and the audio equivalent may be communicated as a telephone communication.
  • voice communicator is intended to include any hardware and software that provide telephone functionality.
  • the voice communicator may be defined by a computer device running telephone software (e.g., an IP Communicator available from Cisco Systems).
  • the computer device may be a multi-function computer device such as personal computer or a dedicated computer device such as a stand-alone IP telephone.
  • the computer device may have a resident Operating System (OS) and an audio driver with the capability of initiating Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) calls.
  • the audio driver may be fully integrated within the OS and be capable of providing the functionality of delivering voice messages to targets/recipients.
  • the voice communicator may or may not provide other functionality in addition to telephone functionality.
  • text is intended to include words, sentences, paragraphs or the like that a recipient user may read.
  • An email message may, for example, comprise text. Text may include text stored as ASCII codes (with or without any formatting).
  • the term "audio" or "speech" is intended to include any audible communication that a recipient user may listen to.
  • the embodiments described herein may be deployed in a PSTN.
  • the embodiments described herein may be deployed in a VoIP environment using hardware and software that enables people to use the Internet as the transmission medium for telephone calls by sending voice data in packets using IP rather than by traditional circuit transmissions of the PSTN.
  • the embodiments described herein may be deployed in a cellular telephone environment.
  • Figure 1 shows architecture of a system 10, in accordance with an example embodiment, to provide a voice communication in a telephone communication network.
  • the system 10 may be used to provide voice mail messages derived from any text (e.g., from an Instant Messages (IM) client, from an email client, from a web browser, or the like).
  • IM Instant Messages
  • the system 10 thus allows cross-context messaging or communication from a text context (e.g., text in an email client) to an audio context (audio in a telephone client such as a soft phone).
  • a recipient of the voice communication/telephone call may not have email access (e.g., no email access at all or no email access during a given time period) and the sender may wish to communicate with the recipient via voice in real time or leave a voicemail for the recipient.
  • the sender may wish to leave a voice mail for himself.
  • the sender may wish to send driving directions (e.g., from MapQuest, Yahoo, Google or the like) to his voice mailbox so that he can listen to them while driving rather than trying to read maps or driving directions.
  • driving directions e.g., from MapQuest, Yahoo, Google or the like
  • a sender receiving an email need not be confined to returning the email communication via the same media (textual communication media) but may communicate a response via a different media (audio media).
  • the system IU is shown to include a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone 12, a telephone 14 (which may be a cellular telephone, a wired or landline telephone, or the like), a computer 16 (e.g. a personal computer including an email and/or Instant Message client), a pager 18, or any other device 20 allowing communication between humans (audio and/or text).
  • VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol
  • the devices 12 to 20 may communicate via one or more networks 22 and any one of the devices 12 to 20 may have a voice mail system or apparatus 24. It will be appreciated that any one or more of the devices 12 to 20 may include, or have access to, a voice mail system/apparatus box 24.
  • the system 10 may include a plurality of different devices and that the devices shown in Figure 1 are merely by way of example.
  • FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of voice communicator 30, in accordance with an example embodiment, to provide a voice communication in a telephone communication network.
  • the voice communicator 30, in an example embodiment, may be deployed in the system 10.
  • the voice communicator 30 may be integrated within any one or more of the devices 12 to 20, or form an independent device connected to the network 22.
  • the voice communicator 30 is described, by way of example, with reference to an IP phone or soft phone (e.g., an application running on a computer device perform so that the device operates as a telephone) but it will be appreciated to one skilled in the art that the voice communicator 30 may be deployed in any telephone device both wired and/or wireless.
  • Internet-based voice communication may be utilized and, instead of calls that were once required to be managed by the public switched telephone network (PSTN) that assigns a dedicated communication line or circuit for each user to complete a telephone call, calls are made via the Internet (a shared medium) by breaking the voice data into varying sized packages or "packets," and transmitting them over the Internet.
  • PSTN public switched telephone network
  • An example of a soft phone wherein the voice communicator, or components thereof, may be deployed is an IP Communicator available from Cisco Systems.
  • the voice communicator 30 is shown to include an IP phone graphical user interface (GUI) 32, a processing module 34, an IP phone interface module 36, an application interface 38, and a Text-To-Speech module 40.
  • GUI IP phone graphical user interface
  • the voice communicator 30 includes all the conventional functionality provided by a telephone such as allowing a caller (sender) to make telephone calls to a callee (called party or recipient).
  • the voice communicator 30 with its application interface 38 may interface directly with any text application (e.g. a web browser that may display text, a word processing application such as Microsoft Word that displays text or the like).
  • the Text-To-Speech module 40 may be any application that automatically processes text to generate an audio equivalent of the text which, as described in more detail below, is processed and converted to an audio or telephony communication.
  • the Text-To-Speech functionality is integrated with and performed by the processing module 34.
  • the voice communicator 30 may optionally include a text application 39 forming a fully integrated multi-context (text and audio) communication device/application.
  • the application interface 38 may or may not be included in the voice communicator 30.
  • reference 50 generally indicates a method, in accordance with an example embodiment, to provide a voice communication in a telephone communication network.
  • the method 50 may be performed by the voice communicator 30 and, accordingly, the method 50 is described with reference thereto.
  • a user may identify text being displayed on a display screen (e.g. a display screen of a computer system, a display screen of a cellular telephone, a display screen of a personal digital assistant (PDA), and so on).
  • the identified text may then be communicated to the Text-To-Speech module 40 via the application interface 38.
  • the identified text is converted to a speech message by the Text-To-Speech module 40 and communicated to the processing module 34.
  • the processing module 34 may include conventional IP phone functionality such as a dial module and the like.
  • the voice communicator 30 identifies a telephone number (or IP address) of an intended recipient (see block 56 in Figure 3). Once the telephone number (or IP address) of the intended recipient has been identified, the processing module 34 in combination with the IP phone interface module 36 establishes a speech/voice connection witn me intended recipient (see block 58). Thereafter, the equivalent audio which has been converted from the identified or selected text is communicated by the voice communicator 30.
  • the method 50 allows a sender to communicate data selected from one context (a text context) via a different context (a voice context) to a recipient.
  • the voice and text functionality is fully integrated in to a single multi-context application and are thus not provided in separate applications.
  • a driver of the Operating System may provide functionality utilized by a phone but the functionality may also be utilized by other applications and the functionality need not be exclusive to a phone.
  • the functionality may be provided by an OS utility which is available to all text applications (or any other applications) available on the device.
  • any application can, for example, use the right click paradigm and invoke the services of this example driver to translate text into voice or audio and send the audio equivalent to a desired destination (or recipient) either via a phone call (which may be done automatically by the driver and not by the person) or, alternatively, via a voice message sent directly to a voicemail messaging system of the recipient (e.g., using AMIS or X.400 standards).
  • Figure 4 shows a flow diagram of a method 70, in accordance with an example embodiment.
  • the method 70 corresponds to the method 50 (see Figure 3) in that it is a deployment of the method 50 in an example World Wide Web (WWW) environment. For example, a user may browse the web and come across an article which he or she wishes to communicate to a friend.
  • WWW World Wide Web
  • the user may be accessing the web to obtain driving directions to a particular geographical location (see block 72).
  • the user may read the content which he or she wishes to communicate in an audible form (see block 74) and then use a text select tool (e.g. a mouse, a pointer in conjunction with a touch screen, keys of a keyboard, or the like) to select or identify relevant text for communication in an audible form (see block 76).
  • a text select tool e.g. a mouse, a pointer in conjunction with a touch screen, keys of a keyboard, or the like
  • the user may import the text into a soft phone or any telephone communication device which then communicates the audio equivalent of the text to a telephone number (or IP address) (see block 78).
  • IP address IP address
  • FIG. 5 shows a graphical user interface (GUI) 80 which, for example, may be a display screen generated by Microsoft Word, a web browser, or any other display rendering application.
  • GUI 80 a document or page 82 is shown to include text 84 which is readable by a user. The user may then highlight a portion of text 86 which he or she wishes to communicate and, for example, may right click on the highlighted portion of text 86 whereupon a popup menu 88 is generated.
  • the popup menu 88 may include conventional commands such as 'Copy' 90, 'Select AU' 92, "Cut" 94, and the like.
  • the popup menu 88 includes a 'Send As Voice' command 96.
  • the user may then select the 'Send As Voice' command 96 (e.g. using keys of a keyboard, a pointing device such as a mouse, or the like) whereupon the method 50 may generate a telephone number identification popup to allow the sender to enter or identify a telephone number of the intended recipient.
  • FIG. 6 shows a graphical user interface (GUI) 100, in accordance with an example embodiment, to identify a recipient telephone number.
  • the GUI 100 is shown to include a telephone number field 102 in which the sender may enter an intended recipient's telephone number.
  • the GUI 100 provides a contacts link 104 which, upon selection by a user, may open a contacts list or address book (e.g. an Microsoft Outlook contacts list or address book including a plurality of potential recipients of the voice communication). The user may then identify one or more of the contacts in the contacts or address book as the intended recipient. Upon selection of one or more recipients, their associated telephone numbers may be automatically imported into the telephone number field 102.
  • a contacts list or address book e.g. an Microsoft Outlook contacts list or address book including a plurality of potential recipients of the voice communication.
  • the user may then identify one or more of the contacts in the contacts or address book as the intended recipient.
  • their associated telephone numbers may be automatically imported into the telephone number field 102.
  • the GUI 100 optionally includes a message field 106 wherein the sender (caller) may type or enter a textual message to the intended recipient (callee or called party) or recipients.
  • the text or message entered by the user is then also converted into an audio message equivalent (e.g. using the Text-To-Speech module 40) and is communicated together with the audio equivalent of the text that has been identitted (e.g. the highlighted portion of text 86 in Figure 5).
  • the audio message equivalent may be communicated prior to the audio equivalent of the selected text so that it may act as an introduction to the audio equivalent that follows.
  • the equivalent audio message may thus be similar to a fax coversheet that describes the contents of the text that follows in the fax.
  • the audio message equivalent is in an audio context as opposed to a textual context of a fax.
  • the sender may use conventional 'cut and paste' functionality provided by most computer operating systems.
  • the user may select text, cut the text from the text document in which it exists, and past the text into a soft phone which then, in an automated fashion and without human intervention, converts the selected text into an audio equivalent.
  • the audio equivalent is then communicated as a voice call via the soft phone to an intended recipient.
  • the audio or voice equivalent may be communicated to a voice mailbox (e.g., the voice mail system/apparatus 24 shown in Figure 1) of the intended recipient or be communicated to the intended recipient in real time (e.g., a regular voice conversation).
  • the audio equivalent may be communicated to the intended recipient's voice mailbox. If, however, the intended recipient answers his or her telephone, then the audio equivalent may be communicated in real time to the intended recipient.
  • the voice communicator 30 and the method 50 may also, in addition to the audio communication via a telephone network, communicate the selected text (or a selected document) via an email communication. Thus, the intended recipient may receive the communication via two different media (an audio media and a text media).
  • the recipient deletes the audio communication from a voice mailbox
  • the email communication in an email mailbox may also be automatically deleted.
  • the audio equivalent may also then automatically be deleted from a corresponding voice mailbox.
  • Figure 7 shows a display screen providing a graphical user interface
  • GUI 120 for importing text into a soft phone (e.g. an IP communicator available from Cisco Systems).
  • the GUI 120 may be provided on a display screen of any electronic device such as, for example, a computer (portable or otherwise) on which the soft phone is resident.
  • the soft phone is shown to have an independent GUI 122 which allows a user to make conventional telephone calls via the computer and, accordingly, includes soft keys 124 that enable the user to dial a telephone number of a telephone (soft phone or any other telephone) of a recipient.
  • the soft phone may include novel functionality which allows a person making a telephone call to automatically, and without human intervention, convert text to an audio equivalent and communicate the audio equivalent to a recipient via his or her telephone.
  • the display screen 120 is shown to display text 86, for example, via an email client graphical user interface (GUI) 126.
  • GUI email client graphical user interface
  • a user may highlight a selected portion of text 86 and, as shown by arrow 128, import the selected portion of text 86 into the soft phone via its graphical user interface 122.
  • the user may, as hereinbefore described, 'cut and paste' the selected portion of text 86 into the soft phone's graphical user interface 122, 'drag and drop' the selected portion of text 86 into the soft phone's graphical user interface 122, or the like.
  • a popup window 130 is automatically generated to allow the sender to identify details of the recipient.
  • the popup window 130 may resemble the GUI 100 (see Figure 6).
  • the audio equivalent may then be communicated via a telephone call to the intended recipient.
  • conversion of text to an audio equivalent is performed at a client device (e.g. at a client telephone, a client computer (personal computer, laptop computer, handheld computer, or the like)) which may, or may not, communicate with a server arrangement.
  • client device e.g. at a client telephone, a client computer (personal computer, laptop computer, handheld computer, or the like)
  • the conversion from text to an audio equivalent does not take place at a server side.
  • a subscriber telephone including any one or more of the embodiments described herein, may perform the functionality at a sender side and the audio equivalent may then be communicated via any telephone system including a traditional hardwired PSTN telephone system.
  • the audio equivalent of the text may be in a .wav format, an MP3 format, or any other audio format.
  • the embodiments described herein may function as standalone units or be fully integrated within an existing telephone (e.g. an existing IP telephone which may be a dedicated IP telephone or a multifunction device such as personal computer, laptop computer, PDA, smart phone, or the like).
  • the identified or selected text may be sourced from any client application that displays text including an instant messaging (IM) client, any web application, and any word processing or document presentation application (e.g. Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, or the like).
  • IM instant messaging
  • any web application e.g. Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, or the like.
  • a check box may be provided in a graphical user interface which, when checked by the sender, results in both the selected text (or an entire file) and its audio equivalent being sent to one or more intended recipients.
  • the sender may receive an email wherein the sender of the email has indicated his or her preference in which to receive a response. For example, an email may be received in which the email sender indicates that he or she would appreciate receiving a response in an audio context and/or an email context. Accordingly, a user of the method 50 or the voice communicator 30 may return a communication in a different context (e.g. receive a communication in a text context and respond in a voice context).
  • a user may address an e-mail by adding one or more user identifications (user IDs) of one or more target recipients. If the user wants to send the e-mail as a voice message, all that the user needs to do is to place a phone number in the list of the recipients. As a result, the system 10 understands that recipient is reachable via telephone, may automatically translate the media from text to voice and automatically dial the telephone number of the intended recipient(s) to deliver the voice message.
  • an e-mail client invokes the underlying services of the OS which are similar in function to the one provided by phone devices today.
  • the methods 50 and 70 may be integrated within an email client on a computer.
  • the e-mail client may have a dedicated place or field for entering the "voice recipients".
  • a dedicated place or field for entering the "voice recipients".
  • an e- mail icon next to the "To” means that the relevant individuals will receive a text e-mail while one or more users whose ID / address is entered in the "To" entry next to a phone icon will get the message via an audio message.
  • the user need not have to enter any phone numbers in this field but need only identify an intended recipient (e.g., using the intended recipient's first and/or last name, user ID, or the like).
  • the system may use a global directory to find the best mode of delivering the audio message to the target user.
  • Figure 8 shows a diagrammatic representation of machine in the example form of a computer system 200 within which a set of instructions, for causing the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, may be executed.
  • the machine operates as a standalone device or may be connected (e.g., networked) to other machines.
  • the machine may operate in the capacity of a server or a client machine in server-client network environment, or as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (or distributed) network environment.
  • the machine may be a voice mail system, a cellular telephone, a personal computer (PC), a tablet PC, a set- top box (STB), a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a cellular telephone, a web appliance, a network router, switch or bridge, or any machine capable of executing a set of instructions (sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that machine.
  • PC personal computer
  • PDA Personal Digital Assistant
  • STB set- top box
  • a cellular telephone a web appliance
  • network router switch or bridge
  • the example computer system 200 includes a processor 202 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), Digital Signal Processor (DSP), or any combination of these processors), a main memory 204 and a static memory 206, which communicate with each other via a bus 208.
  • the computer system 200 may further include a video display unit 210 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a cathode ray tube (CRT)).
  • the computer system 200 also includes an alphanumeric input device 212 (e.g., a keyboard), optionally a user interface (UI) navigation device 214 (e.g., a mouse), optionally a disk drive unit 216, a signal generation device 218 (e.g., a speaker) and a network interface device 220.
  • UI user interface
  • the computer system 200 also includes an alphanumeric input device 212 (e.g., a keyboard), optionally a user interface (UI) navigation device 214 (e.g., a mouse), optionally a disk drive unit 216, a signal generation device 218 (e.g., a speaker) and a network interface device 220.
  • UI user interface
  • the disk drive unit 216 includes a machine-readable medium 222 on which is stored one or more sets of instructions and data structures (e.g., software 224) embodying or utilized by any one or more of the methodologies or functions described herein.
  • the software 224 may also reside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 204 and/or within the processor 202 during execution thereof by the computer system 200, the main memory 204 and the processor 202 also constituting machine-readable media.
  • the software 224 may further be transmitted or received over a network 226 via the network interface device 220 utilizing any one of a number of well-known transfer protocols (e.g., HTTP).
  • HTTP transfer protocol
  • machine-readable medium 222 is shown in an example embodiment to be a single medium, the term “machine-readable medium” should be taken to include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or more sets of instructions.
  • the term “machine-readable medium” shall also be taken to include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying a set of instructions for execution by the machine and that cause the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologies of the present invention, or that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying data structures utilized by or associated with such a set of instructions.
  • machine-readable medium shall accordingly be taken to include, but not be limited to, solid-state memories, optical and magnetic media, and carrier wave signals. Such medium may also include, without limitation, hard disks, floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital video disks, random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROMs), and the like.

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  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Human Computer Interaction (AREA)
  • Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • Signal Processing (AREA)
  • Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
  • General Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • Audiology, Speech & Language Pathology (AREA)
  • Multimedia (AREA)
  • Acoustics & Sound (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
  • Computational Linguistics (AREA)
  • Telephonic Communication Services (AREA)

Abstract

L'invention concerne un procédé et un communicateur vocal permettant d'assurer une communication vocale. Le procédé peut consister à identifier un texte à communiquer et à traiter automatiquement le texte afin de générer un équivalent audio du texte. Par exemple, le texte peut être extrait d'une page Web. Le procédé peut consister à identifier un destinataire prévu de l'équivalent audio et à communiquer ensuite l'équivalent audio sous forme de communication téléphonique (par ex., un message vocal dans une boîte à lettres vocale). Ainsi, l'identification du destinataire prévu peut consister à demander un numéro de téléphone à un expéditeur (appelant) de la communication vocale. Dans un mode de réalisation, le procédé consiste à surveiller la sélection, par un utilisateur, d'une liste de contacts disponible sur le communicateur vocal, la liste de contacts comprenant une pluralité de noms de destinataires et leurs numéros de téléphone associés. L'équivalent audio est communiqué au dispositif destinataire sur, par exemple, un réseau RTPC ou VoIP.
EP06790065A 2005-09-28 2006-08-28 Communicateur vocal pour assurer une communication vocale Withdrawn EP1929761A4 (fr)

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US11/236,903 US8077838B2 (en) 2005-09-28 2005-09-28 Method and voice communicator to provide a voice communication
PCT/US2006/033707 WO2007037891A2 (fr) 2005-09-28 2006-08-28 Communicateur vocal pour assurer une communication vocale

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EP1929761A2 true EP1929761A2 (fr) 2008-06-11
EP1929761A4 EP1929761A4 (fr) 2010-09-01

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EP (1) EP1929761A4 (fr)
CN (1) CN101243679B (fr)
WO (1) WO2007037891A2 (fr)

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Also Published As

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WO2007037891A2 (fr) 2007-04-05
EP1929761A4 (fr) 2010-09-01
WO2007037891A3 (fr) 2007-11-22
US20070081639A1 (en) 2007-04-12
CN101243679B (zh) 2012-10-03
US8077838B2 (en) 2011-12-13
CN101243679A (zh) 2008-08-13

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